


Pineapple Flavoured Dinosaurs

by quiettimenotriottime



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: ADORABLE LESBIANS, Alternate Universe - College/University, Because FIGHT ME that's why, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Gender or Sex Swap, I made them all animators, Pizza, Why?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-01-25 20:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12540732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiettimenotriottime/pseuds/quiettimenotriottime
Summary: The girl on the other side of the door has her fist raised to knock again, but quickly lowers it when she clocks Dan's murderous expression and the bags under her eyes. She has the sort of face that makes it impossible to tell her age- corpse-pale, cheekboney, elfin to the point of weirdness- and wide, colourless eyes that give her the appearance of a startled rabbit.AKA the genderswapped university AU that literally no-one asked for. Now with more Louise!





	1. Chapter 1

Dan's parents drop her off at the dorms where she firmly declines their offer of help with her suitcase. After a hurried goodbye, she trundles up the drive, through the doors into the foyer, up a flight of stairs, up another flight of stairs, until finally she arrives at her room. Her key is stuffed into the bottom of her suitcase where she put it as soon as it came in the mail. It takes a lot of rummaging, cursing, and flying pairs of underwear before she finds it and is finally able to let herself in.

She stands there for a moment, taking stock of what will become her new home for the next year. The walls are awfully bare, painted an ugly yellowy-cream and peppered here and there with old, hard clumps of Blu-tack. Everything is relatively clean, from the bare mattress to the mini fridge- a handy bonus she hadn't really expected. It's small though, almost as small as a cupboard- if she sat against the wall adjacent to the door she could probably reach the opposite wall with her toes. 

She makes up her bed with clean sheets from her suitcase and starts to hang her clothes in the tiny cupboard squashed between the fridge and the window. She can already tell that there isn't enough space, and experiences a twinge of regret for not being more restrained with her packing. This is immediately followed by an even bigger twinge of regret for forgetting to hand in her student accommodation form until the last minute.  

She stuffs the cupboard to capacity and falls heavily back onto her newly made bed. There are some posters and Pokemon plushies left in the bottom of the suitcase, but she'll put them up around the room later. Thankfully classes don't start for another week, so she can sleep in tomorrow if she wants to. She stares at the ceiling for a bit, and she must drift off at some point because she's woken up at what must be six in the morning by loud and persistent knocking.  

This causes several dizzy moments of disorientation as her confused brain tries to disentangle itself from a dream about rampaging yellow dinosaurs made of jelly. There's a dream journal at the bottom of her suitcase, crammed with line upon line of illegible scrawl, but no time to write in it just now. (Later that day she tries to recall the details of the dream, but the only thing she can remember is that the dinosaurs were pineapple flavoured. This seemed to be important at the time.)

Her eyelids unglue themselves with great difficulty. The features of the tiny, drab room come into focus. For an instant she is gripped by terror at the thought that she has been kidnapped, before the memories from the previous day start oozing back. 

She heaves herself out of bed with murder on the mind and shuffles over to the door in her socks, where she discovers with a twinge of dread that she forgot to lock it that morning. She thanks her lucky stars that he wasn't murdered in her sleep.

The girl on the other side of the door has her fist raised to knock again, but quickly lowers it when she clocks Dan's murderous expression and the bags under her eyes. She has the sort of face that makes it impossible to tell her age- corpse-pale, cheekboney, elfin to the point of weirdness- and wide, colourless eyes that give her the appearance of a startled rabbit. 

"Oh-hello," she says, with enough chirpiness to put a budgerigar to shame. "My name's Phil. Short for Fiona. I live in the room across from yours. I noticed you'd just moved in and I thought I'd welcome you to the building."

She pauses for a beat, obviously allowing Dan time to respond with the usual social niceties. Dan just stares at her with steadily growing impatience.

"But-err-I can see that this might be a bad time. Anyway, I made cupcakes for everyone as a sort of welcome gift. So, here you are." 

She shoves a plastic wrapped, squishy something into Dan's unresisting hand.

"Well, I guess I'll see you around then."

Phil wanders off, leaving Dan staring after her and wondering what the hell just happened. She looks down at the cupcake, slightly smushed from her fingers and decorated with what looks like a wobbly icing hamster.

 In a fit of madness, she unwraps the cupcake and eats it in three bites.  She throws the wrapper in the bin and flops back onto the bed, her face still covered in chocolate crumbs. 

She doesn't mean to fall asleep, but she must do, because she wakes up again close to evening and immediately realises she's starving. She flops out of bed and gropes her way to the bathroom down the hall to wash her face, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible and praying she doesn't run into anyone in the hallway.

When she exits the bathroom, she sees that Phil is once more standing outside her room. Dan stares at her with steadily mounting irritation.

She walks up behind her and coughs loudly. Phil almost hits the ceiling. "You almost gave me a heart attack!" She complains.

"You shouldn't lurk outside other people's rooms then," Dan says, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms.

"I wasn't lurking!" Phil squawks. 

"What would you call it, then?"

"..." 

"Exactly."

"Anyway," Phil says hurriedly, "I just wanted to ask whether you wanted to have dinner with us in the common room. We're ordering a pizza. Unless you have other plans...?"

Dan doesn't. The only things in her  room resembling food are a few packets of crisps and some Haribo. She could go and get dinner out, but her knowledge of Manchester's eateries starts and ends with the cafe on the corner, which is probably shut this late in the evening. She considers her options for a while, watching Phil fidget out of the corner of her eye.

Finally she shrugs. "I guess I might as well. It's not like I have anything better to do."

Phil instantly brightens, like a small, obnoxious sun.

"Great! Pizza's arriving at 7:30. I'll see you then!"

She trots off down the hall before Dan remembers she doesn't actually know where the common room is.


	2. Chapter 2

A sensible person might begin to question, at this point, why Dan's knowledge of her new living situation is so threadbare. This is because Dan is an incorrigible procrastinator. Not only did she neglect to send off her housing application until the last possible instant (read: five minutes to midnight on the cut-off date), she also failed to leave herself enough time to scope out her accommodations before moving in. 

The precise location of the common room isn't a mystery Dan particularly feels like solving. She stands in the hall for several minutes, pondering her own ineptitude, before deciding that trying to ask for directions would just be too embarrassing. 

She unlocks the door and stares blankly at the empty fridge. Her stomach rumbles unhappily as she contemplates skipping dinner in favour of preserving what remains of her dignity. 

She closes the door and sits heavily on the bed. Her bag catches her eye, still not completely unpacked. She pulls it onto the bed with her and rummages around for a packet of salt and vinegar squares. She's just about to rip open the packet and drown herself in vinegary deliciousness, when there comes a knock on her door. 

Overcome by sudden, uncontrollable rage, Dan scrunches the packet of crisps in her fist, crushing them to salty, vinegary crumbs. She waits thirty seconds, hoping the person at the door will go away. They don't. 

Seething, she gets up and stomps over to the door.

It's Phil again. She looks out of breath.

"Sorry! I forgot you're new and you might not know where the common room is, so I'd better show you."

Her fingers close around Dan's wrist, firm and startling, and tug her not so gently in the direction of the stairwell.

"Oi, wait a minute," Dan complains. "Let me lock my door at least."

"Oh. Oops." Phil lets go of her arm and stands back, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry. I was just excited."

(Dan gets the impression that Phil is excited a lot.)

She takes her time locking her door, observing Phil's impatient bouncing from the corner of her eye. She can't seem to keep still, all fidgety fingers and restless movements, like a moth butting its soft, powdery head against a lightbulb.  Dan would like to grab hold of her shoulders and keep her still for just a minute, just to hear herself think.

"Alright," she says finally, stuffing the key into her pocket. "Show me the way or whatever."

Phil beams. 

They walk down two staircases and across the foyer, coming finally to a set of open double doors. The room inside is large, littered with comfortable looking armchairs and squashy beanbags. Two of the armchairs are occupied by a voluptuous young woman with a waterfall of loose blonde curls and a slender brunette with a glass of what might be straight vodka in her hand. In the far corner, a blonde man in square hipster glasses is having an animated discussion with a guy in a black and white chequered tie.

Dan sits awkwardly in the corner and pretends to text until the pizza arrives. From the corner of her eye, she watches Phil talk to a girl with pink and purple pigtails.

Phil looks back at her at the worst possible moment and their eyes meet. The pit of Dan’s stomach yawns open and her heart tips into a nose-dive as Phil’s face lights up like a rainforest diorama, one of those ones with a little LED light taped to the top. She tries to scan for exits so she can beat a hasty retreat, but Phil is already walking towards her and she resigns herself to her fate.

“Dan, come meet some people,” Phil says, grasping hold of Dan’s wrist with her thin, spidery fingers.

Dan most emphatically does not want to meet some people.

“I don’t want to meet some people,” she says bluntly, her mouth twisting up around the words as if they taste bad.

“Don’t be like that!” Phil says, dragging Dan along behind her. “Everyone’s a little nervous making friends for the first time, but it’s an important part of the university experience!”

"So that's how it is, is it? You lure people in with the promise of free pizza and then you force them to make nice with each other?"

"Pretty much."

Dan follows begrudgingly, deciding it would be more trouble than it was worth to make a scene by digging her heels in and refusing to budge. Dan’s spent enough of her life fighting with her kid brother to know how to pick her battles.

Phil introduces her to chequer boy and hipster guy. “This is Tom and Jack,” she says brightly. “Whatever you do, don’t get them talking about filmmaking, or you’ll never get them to shut up about it.”

“I resent that,” Jack says loudly over Tom’s muttered “that’s fair.”

“Nice to meet you,” says Dan through gritted teeth, desperately trying to pry Phil’s finger’s off her wrist one by one.

Next Phil introduces her to the two girls. “This is Hazel and Louise. They get drunk and cry about Chris Hemsworth a lot.”

“Okay, firstly,” says Hazel “we don’t get drunk, we get tipsy, and secondly: fair.”

There are more introductions and more people, including Tom’s girlfriend Charlie, a quiet, tranquil sort of person with one of the kindest smiles Dan’s seen on maybe anyone ever, before the pizza arrives and Dan can finally catch a break. They eat the pizza in front of some _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ reruns while Jack complains loudly about the scriptwriting and the directing and other things ending with “ing” until Hazel throws a pillow at him.

Later, full of pizza and happy about life in general, Dan lounges on the sofa and listens to Louise, Hazel and Charlie talk about pugs. They’re all sprawled out like knocked-over bowling pins.

Phil nudges Dan’s side. 

“Hey. Are you glad I made you come?”

“That’s what she said,” says Dan automatically.

Phil rolls her eyes. “Da- _an_ ,” she scolds, drawing out the vowel sound. “But seriously. Are you?’

“My stomach is glad,” Dan concedes.

“Hey, that’s something,” Phil says, smiling brightly. “I’m going to count that as a victory.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Dan says, rolling her eyes.

“Anyway, I was thinking we should exchange numbers, just in case we need to contact each other. Can you type yours into my phone?”

Dan wants to say no. Phil is almost a total stranger, and Dan doesn’t hand out her number to just anyone. But something about Phil’s stupid Bambi eyes stops up all her protests before they can leave her mouth. Sighing, she reluctantly hands over her phone.

Later, she goes back to her room and crashes onto her bed, exhausted after so much social interaction. She digs her phone out of her jacket pocket and clicks through her messages. There are a couple from her parents asking how she’s settling in and a few from her school friends.

Suddenly, her phone buzzes in her hand and she almost throws it across the room. It’s from an unknown number.

 _Hi!_ The message reads, _it’s Phil. Tonight was fun. We should all hang out again sometime._

 _Sure, whatever_ , Dan texts back. _Now leave me alone, Forced Social Interaction Time is over and I have a date with an Articuno._

 _You like Pokémon :D?_  

 _I'm pretty sure everyone born before 1978 likes Pokémon_ , says Dan, which is probably true. Maybe.

_That’s awesome. I have a Gengar plushie named Susan._

Dan’s brain short-circuits a little, because why the hell would you call a Gengar plushie Susan, of all things?

 _Why Susan?_ She asks, unable to help herself.

 _I don’t know, I just like the name._ Dan pinches the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming on. _Goodnight_ , she texts back pointedly.

_Sweet dreams ^_^_

Huh.

Dan shakes her head and gathers her pyjamas and toothbrush, heading for the shower.


	3. Chapter 3

Dan’s phone blares at her from the floor at Stupid o’clock. Blearily, she rolls out of bed and gropes blindly across a terrain of dirty t-shirts and empty crisp packets. Finally, she finds the phone inside the pocket of her favourite pair of black skinny jeans, which she wriggled out of last night before falling face-first onto the bed.

Dan thumbs open her email and perks up when she sees that Amazing Phil has uploaded a new video. Phil is the king of the animation side of YouTube and Dan’s personal hero. He exploded onto the online animation scene in 2006 and his channel continues to grow exponentially every year. His latest video has 200 thousand hits already and it was only uploaded this morning.

Dan’s done her own animations, just messing around in her bedroom with Adobe Flash, but she’s never found the courage to post anything online, let alone ask her parents for money to go to animation school. Instead she chose to study Law to keep her parents happy, because as her Dad says, what’s the point of good grades if you don’t use them?

Dan has a quick shower and dresses in the only clean set of clothes she has left: a black t-shirt with “Drop Dead Gorgeous” written on it in big red letters with a cartoon vampire underneath, and a pair of ratty joggers. Then it’s off to the only class she actually enjoys, Animation Principles. One of the things Dan insisted on when she agreed to study Law was the right to take at least one animation class, just to see how she liked it.

It’s been two weeks since she started at Man U, and she’s managed to get lost on the way to class at least three times. On the plus side, she found a grocery store on the second day and stashed a bunch of ready-made meals in the mini-fridge, so she thinks she’s doing alright.

Phil is waiting outside her door with two paper cups of coffee and a Starbucks bag, leaning against the wall like a boy in a teen romantic comedy. Dan mutters a “thanks,” taking the proffered cup and cradling it between her palms.

They’ve got a system going. Phil meets Dan outside her door every Friday morning and they walk to the lecture hall together, then later they get lunch and go over last week’s homework before class.

Dan’s given up on telling Phil not to wait outside her door. Sometimes she thinks Phil camps out there all night with a sleeping bag and a family sized box of Shreddies. She wouldn’t put it past her.

Dan keeps glancing surreptitiously at the paper bag as they walk to the lecture hall. Her stomach gurgles unhappily, making Phil snort into her coffee and hide a smile.

“Want a croissant?” Phil asks, holding out the bag.

“Yes please,” Dan says eagerly, for once not bothering to hide her true feelings behind mountains of sarcasm.

Phil hands her a buttery smelling croissant, still warm from the oven, and Dan falls upon it like a starving fox.

“Good?” Phil asks, amused.

“Mmph,” Dan grunts, mouth full.

They get to the lecture hall at 8:20am. Chloe and Charlie wave at them from the back row. 

Charlie’s changed her hair again, to a deep burgundy that looks great against her pale skin. Dan’s not sure when she had the chance to do that: by the time Dan had made her excuses and gone to bed last night it was 10:30 and Charlie was sprawled out on the couch, her hair an unmistakable turquoise.

"Rough night?" Asks Chloe, spearing the lid of her melon flavoured bubble tea with her straw and taking a long sip.

"You could say that," Dan sighs, slumping into the spare seat next to Charlie.

Later, they all file into the classroom for their tutorial. Dan likes to go early and stake out a table near the back of the class. Everyone always comes with her in a show of solidarity. It's- nice. Dan's never really had people in her corner before.

Students file in like hipster zombies, clutching their Grande Frappuccinos and glaring balefully from within the folds of their hand-knitted scarves.

"Fucking art students," Dan mutters.

Charlie raises an eyebrow from the desk over.

"Present company excluded," Dan amends.

"I should hope so," Charlie says tartly, but there's a smile at the corner of her mouth.

This elective is available as part of both the animation and fine arts courses, so it's a mixed bag in terms of its students. And then there's Dan, law student extraordinaire, probably the only person here who's not in either course. She's not sure how to feel about that.

Their professor stumbles into the classroom five minutes late, wiping ineffectually at the coffee stain on his shirt.

"Fucking art students," Dan hears him mumble from across the room. Half the room erupts into titters while the other half looks mildly offended.

"Joking!" Says Mr. Hanson, holding both hands up in a placating gesture. "That was a joke, don't get me fired, please."

Dan sneaks a glance at Charlie. Predictably, her eyes have gone big and round and sparkly, like a character out of a Shoujo manga. She doesn't even look offended by the art student comment.

"Hey Charlie, look, it's your boyfriend," whispers Chloe, trying desperately to stifle her laughter.

"He's not my boyfriend!" Charlie hisses. "I just admire his work."

"Is that a euphemism for penis?"

"Hey guys, keep it down, Mr. Hanson is about to start," Louise whispers.

* * *

 

Near the end of class, Mr. Hanson gives them their first assignment for the semester.

"I want you to work in pairs. I don't care who you pick to work with, just don't fight about it. And no, before you ask, no groups of three. Just pick someone. For this assignment, I want you to animate a walk cycle using a character that you design together. The key word here is TOGETHER. Don't try to slack off and make your partner do all the work, because I WILL know."

"Hey, you wanna work together?" Asks Phil, smiling hopefully with her big puppy eyes. Dan can clearly picture a big fluffy tail and two perky ears to match.

And by imagining that, she's just doomed herself to working with Phil whether she wants to or not, because Dan has historically been terrible at saying no to dogs. Her family dog Benji is probably the most spoiled animal on the face of the planet.

"Okay, fine," Dan concedes, exasperated. "And put those away, they should be illegal."

Phil giggles, her tongue poking cheekily from between her teeth.

(Honestly, who actually giggles in real life? Phil does, apparently. Phil has an obnoxiously tinkly giggle, like a wind chime or a bagful of jangly coins; the kind of giggle you'd expect a fairy to have. It's stupid. And annoying.)

After that, they meet up with Hazel, Tom, Jack, Louise and Chloe's best friend, Culinary Student Dan, in the cafeteria for lunch. The place is crawling with students, but they manage to secure a table in the corner without too many sandwich crumbs or coffee stains on it.

Louise, true to form, looks like she just stepped off a film set. Dan takes a moment to feel self-conscious about her chipped black nail polish and day-old mascara.

"I am fucking starving," says Hazel, taking a huge bite of her chicken salad sandwich.

"Charming," says Jack.

"Fuck you, Jack Howard," says Hazel, although it comes out sounding more like "Fork you, jerk herd."

Phil takes a break from shovelling baked potatoes into her mouth to nudge Dan, who's eyeing her Caesar salad doubtfully.

"So, we should probably get together soon to work on our project," Phil says.

"Sure," says Dan, poking a crouton with her fork. It makes an alarming squelching sound.

"Is tonight okay?"

"Um, tonight's... Not great," says Dan awkwardly, fiddling with one of her wristbands and feeling anxiety well up inside her. "I have a thing."

The truth is, Dan has weekly appointments with her therapist at 6 on a Monday evening that leave her too emotionally drained to do anything afterwards, but she can't exactly say that.

"That's fine. What about Tuesday?"

"I can do Tuesday. How about 6?"

"Sounds good. I'll see you there."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things:
> 
> 1\. I am not an animator. I am probably going to get a lot of things wrong about animation in the course of this fic. If you are an animator and you want to scream at me about what I’m getting wrong, please feel free.
> 
> 2\. I have nothing against art students. My sister is an art student, and she’s lovely. Please ignore my lame attempts at humour.
> 
> 3\. Why does Phil go to animation school when she can already animate, I hear you ask? Good question. When you find out the answer please let me know. Also, there are many more plot flaws where that came from.


	4. Chapter 4

Dan turns up at Phil’s door at 6 o’clock on the dot. Phil’s room is on the ground floor near the laundry, and the corridors down here are dark and eerie, like the set of a horror movie. The low hum of the washing machines sets Dan’s teeth on edge and casts a weird spell over the whole place.

Dan’s barely finished knocking when Phil flings open the door, making Dan flinch back a step. Phil’s hair is wet and she’s wearing a comfortable looking set of joggers and a faded blue hoodie.

“Hi,” she says, smiling big and wide. “Come inside!”

“Hi…” says Dan, treading cautiously into the room while Phil reaches around to close the door behind her.

“Have a seat,” Phil says magnanimously, gesturing to the swivel chair in front of the computer desk.

Dan sits down gingerly and looks around. It’s a nice room: there are cool art pieces on the walls and a bed with a blue and green plaid duvet, as well as a giant poster of Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. It’s not exactly what Dan expected.

Come to think of it, she’s not sure what she expected. Maybe giant posters of Fallout Boy and My Chemical Romance and an abundance of black, like her own room. With her straight black hair, pale skin and fondness for liquid liner, Phil looks like the poster child for Emo. It’s similar to the sort of look Dan once tried desperately to ape.

Phil takes a pile of clothes off a rickety looking plastic chair and drags it over to the desk, sinking into it.

“So,” she says, tapping a few keys to get the computer to wake up and opening Flash. “What sort of character do you want to create?”

Dan only has to think about it for a second.

“A dog,” she says decisively, taking the mouse from Phil and sketching out its shape in quick, practised strokes.

“What breed, though?” Phil says, chewing her bottom lip thoughtfully.

“A Shibe, of course,” Dan says, adding a pointed snout and a curly, fluffy tail. “Obviously.”

Phil tries unsuccessfully to hide her smile. “I like Corgis better.” She steals the mouse back and shortens the dog’s neck and legs, adds a little more heft to the body.

Dan admires their creation. “It’s cute,” she says, surprised.

Phil’s smile cracks open fully, like a wall has been smashed open to let in the sunlight. Dan tries not to be too dazzled.

They get to work on the rough animation, passing the mouse back and forth. After a good ten minutes of near constant bickering Dan realises with a start that she’s genuinely enjoying herself.

“Dan, why does that leg suddenly get bigger in this frame, what are you doing?”

“Shut up, as if you could do any better.”

Phil steals the mouse back and redraws the leg perfectly. Dan tries not to feel too affronted.

Afterwards, Dan lingers at the door, trying to think of an excuse not to leave.

“I had a surprisingly not awful time tonight,” she says awkwardly.

“I’m touched.”

“You know what I mean,” Dan says, swatting Phil on the shoulder.

“Yeah,” says Phil, grinning goofily. “Yeah, I do.”

Dan rolls her eyes. “See you Friday, dork.”

As she wanders down the hall, smiling stupidly to herself, she feels her phone buzz in her pocket. It’s her mother.

_Hey sweetie. Can you make it back home this weekend? Benji misses you._

She sends off a quick reply and almost trips over a girl sitting the floor outside Hazel’s room, which is a few doors down from Dan’s. She’s wearing a bright yellow dress and comically large eyeglasses.

“Hi,” she says brightly. “I’m Dodie.”

She stretches out a hand to shake without bothering to get up.

“Dan. Sorry for almost running you over.”

“That’s okay. So, what brings you to this neck of the woods?”

“I live a few doors down. What about you?”

“I’m waiting for Hazel to get back so she can let me in. I locked my keys inside.”

“Wait, you’re Hazel’s roommate? Why haven’t I met you before?”

“I was off sick all last week with a stomach bug.”

“Sounds nasty.”

“It was. I threw up everywhere.”

“Oh,” Dan says, trying not to cringe at the mental image. “Well, I’d better get going.”

“Wait. You wouldn’t happen to play an instrument by any chance, would you?”

“I can kind of play the piano. Why?”

“Hazel and I are putting together a band. We’ve got Tom on bass and me on guitar and uke, but we could do with someone on keyboards. You in?”

“I’m not sure…”

“Think about it and let me know. We’ll be starting practices on Wednesday evenings at 7 in Music Room 1.”

“Okay. I’ll think about it.”

“Awesome. I’ll see you around, Dan.”

“See you,” says Dan, walking the few feet to her room and letting herself in, waving awkwardly at Dodie before shutting the door after herself.

As soon as she gets inside, her phone rings. It’s her best friend and partner in crime from high school.

“What do you want,” she says flatly, wedging the phone between her neck and shoulder and unzipping her boots.

"What, I have to have a reason to call to my best friend?"

“You never call unless you want to talk about something personal. Otherwise it’s just texts.”

“Damn, you know me too well.”

“So what’s up?” Dan says, wriggling out of her skinny jeans and flopping onto her bed in an ungraceful sprawl.

"Well, there's this girl..."

"Oh no. Not again."

"No, wait. This time it's different. I _really_ like her." "That's what you said about all the other ones."

"Shut up and let me talk. So I met this girl in Starbucks and she's really cool. One of those arty types with those cute vintage cardigans and hipster glasses. And she's got curls for days, you know how I like those."

Dan does know. Chris is always telling her she should stop straightening her hair, probably so she can play with her curls all day.

"Anyway, she gave me her number, but I lost it. Guess what though: Before she left I found out she’s a film student at your school. Dan, you gotta help me out."

"What do you want me to do exactly?"

"Get her number somehow."

"How?!"

"I don't know, ask around."

"Can't you just come here and talk to her yourself?"

"No, I'm not a stalker."

"Really? Because what you're asking me to do seems pretty stalkerish."

"Yeah, but she'll never find out about it, so what's the big deal?"

"That's terrible reasoning."

"Okay, how about this. If you do this for me, you get one favour. You can cash it in at any time, and it can be anything, and I mean anything. You want me to hide a dead body, I'm there."

"Jesus Christ on a boat. Alright, fine, I'll do it."

"Great! You won't regret this, Dan."

"Yeah, I've heard that one before."

"Rude. Anyway, I've gotta go. Talk to you later."

"Okay, bye."

"One more thing her name is PJ. PJ Ligouri. Good luck."

"Thanks," says Dan sarcastically, sighing and hitting the end button. What an eventful day. Time to browse tumblr for eight years before passing out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. You might be wondering how Hipster and Emo coexist as equally popular subcultures at the same point in time. This is because, in the words of the great Arin Hanson, "(they) exist in an era in which all events are current, as well as none." Which is just a fancy way of saying I’m far too lazy to make this at all historically accurate. 
> 
> 2\. Said man also recently saw fit to bless us with his animation wisdom in the form of several YouTube videos. Thank you Mr. Hanson, those videos could not be better timed.


End file.
